


Back to the Beginning

by ArianneMaya



Category: Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArianneMaya/pseuds/ArianneMaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She stares at the picture, reads the file over and over. She wishes for something, anything, the smallest hint of a memory, even just a feeling, maybe. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>She looks happy, the girl on the picture, in a way Letty can't remember being. She's younger, maybe four or five years. She looks like she doesn't have a care in the world, like she's enjoying everything life has given her, including the man on whose lap she's sitting. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Eeyore9990 for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

"Letty!"

She hears him, of course she hears him. But she knew before she even stepped out of her car what she was about to do. So she aims, and she shoots. It's only when he falls against his own car, with a bullet in his shoulder, staring at her like he's just seen a ghost, that she realizes that he called out her name. 

How the hell does he knows her name?

She doesn't stay to ask. She gets back into her car and runs. 

***

_I don't remember him!_

She doesn't know if the rest of the team believes her. She doesn't care. She's loyal; always has been, always will be. It doesn't matter if that Toretto guy knew her before, even if it was intimately enough that some wannabee photographer caught her sitting on his lap. She has no memory of anything, no memory of him, or of the times they might have shared. 

It doesn't matter. 

***

_We lost Ivory. He's gone._

She feels her heart grow cold at Shaw's reaction. It isn't the first time, probably won't be the last, either. It's like there's some standard she measuring him up against, some standard that he'll never manage to live up to, even if he wanted to. And she has a feeling that he doesn't want to, not really. 

Shaw catches up to her, obviously trying to make things better, but all he does is creep her out. He's trying a bit too hard, like he doesn't quite know how to handle her, not anymore. She gets the feeling that to his eyes, she's an interesting kind of weapon, a tool. Not a person. 

Soon, she needs to get away from him. To let him get closer feels like she's suffocating. 

***

_And let me guess. You saved me._

_No. I was the kid showing off._

She gives Toretto points for blunt honesty, then deduces more for his attempt to seduce her. The memories he's telling her about don't prove anything. They don't wake anything in her, almost as if he was telling her about another woman's life. It doesn't feel like that woman is her. 

It doesn't feel like he's hers, either. 

So when he tries to kiss her, she has to get away. 

***

She stares at the picture, reads the file over and over. She wishes for something, anything, the smallest hint of a memory, even just a feeling, maybe. 

She looks happy, the girl on the picture, in a way Letty can't remember being. She's younger, maybe four or five years. She looks like she doesn't have a care in the world, like she's enjoying everything life has given her, including the man on whose lap she's sitting. 

When Shaw asks to see the cross, she's tempted not to give it to him. But if she kept it, it would be something tying her to an existence she remembers nothing of. And, in the same way she never trusted Shaw, she can't trust someone she doesn't remember, someone who's a stranger. 

_Keep it._

***

_What the hell is wrong with you? This isn't part of the plan._

Letty doesn't think she's ever been scared of Shaw like this before. Casualties, she can handle. There are always people in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It's sad, but it's a fact of life. 

What Shaw's doing, though, is pure cruelty. 

Maybe that's the moment that tips the scale for her. When she realizes that Shaw is killing people almost for fun, while Toretto and his team are doing their best to draw Shaw's attention away from the people. 

In that moment, she wants, badly, to go back to that moment when she ran away from Toretto and make a different choice. 

But she can't.

***

_Letty, go cut the cable._

She obeys, like she always does. That's one of the reasons why she's still a member of Shaw's team, even though she's seen others come and go: because she never discusses orders. 

One second, she's on top of the tank. The next, she's flying through the air, and falling. 

And falling. 

She has a second to be scared, to think, _I'm gonna die,_ before someone catches her. 

They land on the hood of a car, knocking the breath out of her. She isn't hurt any more than that, though, because Toretto – Dom – took the brunt of that fall. 

She can't help but think that he's lucky she's so much smaller than him. 

***

_How did you know there would be a car there to break our fall?_

_I didn't. Some things you just have to take on faith._

She wonders if he's insane. She was falling to her death. They could have both died while he tried to save her. 

She's starting to understand that to Dom, the risk was worth it. 

She doesn't get why, though. She still believes what she told Dom the night they raced against each other: she isn't the woman he remembers. And while it's possible that her memories would actually come back if she was with people who knew her before, it's not a guarantee. The woman Dom remembers might never be back. So why he would go to all that trouble is a mystery. 

Watching him and his team gives her a completely different vibe than what she's seen from Shaw. It dawns on her, between one moment and the next. This is the standard she was holding Shaw up against. This is the reason why, in her mind, he always came up short. Because even though she can't remember any of them, even though she's almost certain most of them only know her as Dom's former, thought to be dead girlfriend, she knows they'll have her back if she needs it. 

Maybe that's why, when it turns out that Shaw's taken Mia hostage and Dom's about to go after him she says, "I'm going with you." She doesn't know if she can trust Dom yet, but after the way he saved her life without a thought to how he was endangering his own, after watching a federal agent let an international criminal walk out of loyalty to Dom, she needs to learn more about him. 

The rest of the night is a blur of confusing emotions, of trying to make sense of what's going on around her. She tries not to show it, but she wonders why they all trust her so easily. It's all worth it, though, if only for the fact that she gets to be the one to take out Riley. After the beat down Riley gave her the other day, after watching her betray people who trusted her, nothing could have felt better. 

So many things feel like she should remember them, like they should feel familiar, in a way Shaw's attitude toward her never did. To the point where her heart almost stops beating after jumping out of the plane and watching Dom go back inside. Once she's safely in the jeep, she faces the falling plane, waiting and waiting and waiting and only breathing again when she sees the car going through the plane's wall. 

It's like a punch to the stomach when the flames engulf Dom's car. When the jeep comes to a stop, Letty keeps repeating to herself, like a mantra, like a prayer, _please, don't be dead. Please, please, don't you die on me, Dom._

She almost can't believe her eyes when she finds him walking toward them. Before she has the time to think, she's walking to meet him at a brisk pace. She knows there was a time when she would have run up to him, thrown herself into his arms and kissed him. But no matter everything that happened, she doesn't know him, not really. There's a wall between her and her memories, a wall she's aware she might never manage to crawl her way through. 

So she puts her arms around him to pull him close. She feels his lips against her hair, but he doesn't try anything else. She gets a feeling that, after that first time when he tried to kiss her and she didn't let him, he's going to leave the pace up to her, like just having her here, in his arms, is enough for him. 

***

Letty doesn't recognize the house in Echo Park, so she takes Mia's word that it didn't change much, if you forget how much work the front yard will be before it stops looking like a forest. From the way Mia says that, Letty has a feeling that they will all be put to work to fix things, whether they want it or not. 

The house is full of boxes. Hobbs apparently pulled some kind of miracle and managed to get most of their stuff back, even though everything had been taken away after Brian and Mia busted Dom out of jail. 

The first time she hears that, Letty stares at Mia and the toddler in her lap, and she can't stop laughing. 

"Hey!" Mia points a threatening finger at her. "I'll have you know I'm an excellent driver." 

When Letty finally gets her laughter under control, her smile is so wide, it feels like her whole face is about to crack. "I believe you." 

After they make their first tour of the house, Mia points to one of the guest bedrooms. "Most of your stuff is in there. You were using that room when... everything happened." 

With a small frown, Letty looks at Dom over her shoulder. "I was sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms?"

For the first time, Dom looks uneasy. "I wasn't there." 

"He was on the run, in South America," Mia says, softly. "You said that sleeping in your bed without him felt wrong. So you took that room." 

If Letty wonders why they weren't together, now isn't the time to ask. 

Instead, she says, as gently as she can, "I think I will sleep here for now."

Then, she stares at Dom, until he says, "Your choice. I'm not gonna push." 

Mia walks out and Dom's about to follow her when Letty grabs his hand to stop him. "That woman you knew, that woman you were in love with, you might never get her back. I'm not her. Even if I remember, I don't know if I can be her again. So why would you waste time waiting?" 

"You're wrong." He steps closer, cups her face with one hand. "You didn't change that much. Anyone who knew you before could see it. Here," he lets his fingers follow the line of her neck, stopping once they're hovering over her heart, "You're the same person."

"But--"

He presses a finger against her lips. "Please, let me finish."

She smiles despite herself. She has a feeling he isn't usually that much of a talker. 

"And you don't remember it, but you waited for me. You waited two years, when you were young enough that I wasn't expecting you to, that I didn't ask you to, while I was in jail. You waited another six months when I got out, while I enjoyed freedom, while I got drunk and high and fucked everything that moved. And even," he sighs, "Even when I was a dumb fuck and got us separated, you here and me in South America, you were still waiting for me to come home. And you think I ain't gonna wait for you?" 

She stares at him for a good minute, speechless. 

His face is so serious that it feels like her heart is about to burst when he says, “I'm not expecting anything. All I'm asking for is the chance to discover who you are now.”

Without giving it any more thought, she pushes herself up on her tiptoes and kisses him. 

When she eases back down, he's smiling at her, almost teasingly. "What was that for?" 

Her voice is just as light when she says, "You complaining?"

"Ain't complaining, just wondering why."

"I think I'm starting to understand why I was in love with you." 

The look on his face makes her want to throw her arms around him and never let go, yet she forces herself to say, "Just don't treat me like I'm made of glass. I'm not gonna break. And if you know me, you should know that." 

He gives a small nod and pulls her closer. "Guest bedroom, huh?" 

She has a hard time not laughing. Of course, that's what he would choose to argue about. "I'm not saying it's gonna last, just... for now, yes." 

"I get it." Yet he smiles and he says, "Feels like we're teenagers all over again." 

"Why is that?" 

He looks at her for a moment, like he isn't sure that she wants to hear it. He, Brian and Mia have all been especially careful around her, never volunteering information unless she asks for it. Eventually, she'll give up and ask them to tell her what she doesn't remember. For now, though, she's still hoping that her memories will come back, that being home will be enough to trigger them. 

There are things that she doesn't really want to remember, like what happened to land her in the hospital and in Shaw's hands. But others, she'd give anything to have them back. 

"I couldn't step foot in your house; your father thought I wasn't good enough for you. And here, my Dad said you could share with Mia or I could sleep on the couch." 

She snickers at the idea of Dom, all six foot of him cramped onto that tiny couch. 

"Exactly. I slept on that couch a lot." He finally releases her, but she doesn't go far. 

"I have a hard time believing we were that well behaved." She may not remember how Dom was, back then, or even herself, but she has a feeling that she was already as stubborn as she is today. 

Dom's eyes are shining with glee. "We gave the appearance of it. But I already had a car. It was old and it wasn't pretty, but there was lot of space in the back seat. We took some very long drives." 

She can't stop smiling. She wishes she could say it sounds familiar, or that memories of that time are popping to the surface. She can't. 

But for the first time, it feels like that woman Dom is telling her about might have been her, once. 

***

When Hobbs comes to bring the team their pardons, with Elena on his heels, Letty has to give herself a little push to talk to Elena and thank her for everything she's done. She means every word when she says that it takes an amazing woman, in big part because, in Elena's place, she isn't sure she could have done what Elena did. She sincerely doubts that she could have let someone like Dom walk out of her search of his former, thought to be dead girlfriend if she'd known that, if he found the person he was looking for, she would lose him. 

Letty might not remember much, but she's sure she's never been that selfless. 

"Any of this feel familiar?"

"No. But it feels like home."

"That's good enough for me." 

Maybe Letty will never understands how Dom could love her so much that he went to the lengths he did when he thought she'd been murdered -- she hasn't heard the whole story yet, but from the little she knows, the risks he took were insane -- that he had to try and find her when there was the smallest chance that she was still alive. 

She understands even less when she reminds herself that he still loves her, even though, as she keeps reminding him, she isn't the same person, might never be the same person again. She doesn't get why he didn't move on instead of waiting for her. 

When the food is ready, she sits on his lap, as she might have done years ago. He holds onto her like he's afraid she's going to disappear if he doesn't keep her close enough. He does that a lot, holding her hand, keeping an arm around her waist when they're standing next to each other, his hands on her hips and thighs when they're sitting like this. 

But the more time passes, the more she realizes that when he said he wasn't expecting anything, he meant it. He's letting her set the pace, just as he did after they found each other in London. The only reason why he's comfortable keeping her this close is because she was the one who did it first. 

She still sleeps in the guest bedroom, for now. He keeps her close but hasn't tried anything, not even just a kiss. 

It's as if, having her close by, having her in his life is more than enough for him, no matter how much she's changed. 

If she wanted to stay just friends, she's almost certain he would agree. She'd even get to keep living with them if she wanted to. She's starting to understand that, when Dom says that his team is his family, he means it. And that it applies to her too, in whatever capacity she wants. 

She was almost tempted to, at first. She couldn't help but think that it would be easier for her to remember everything without putting more expectations on herself. 

She was surprised by how the words seemed to stay stuck in her throat, even when just thinking about it. It sounds ridiculous now, but in the moment, the pain was almost physical. As much as she doesn't want to need anyone but herself, imagining herself without Dom at her side _hurts_. She isn't really sure what's left of what they once had, but she doesn't want to lose that. Not when it makes her feel so much stronger. 

"...thank you for bringing Letty home."

She blinks, surprised. That's something else she doesn't understand. Asking around made her realize that most of the team don't even know her. They've never met her, yet they got together from all over the world because Dom was asking. That they made that much effort only makes sense when she remembers that it was their chance to all be free to come home, get full pardons and amnesty. 

Yet the one time she said that aloud, Brian said, "If Dom had asked, they would have done this for you. No need for anything else. But since Dom knew that, he let Hobbs do the asking. And bury himself in a hole until he had to say yes to full pardons for everyone." 

And now, simple as that, they consider her part of them. From the moment they got her back, they all agreed with Dom's, "She's always been one of us." 

Their relationship fascinates her. The whole team has changed, almost no-one remaining from the early days. Yet, even though some of them found their way to Dom through Brian – and she might not know the whole story, but Letty has a feeling that the relationship between Dom and Brian is way more complicated than they are willing to admit – the way they see each other, the way they always have each other's back, always, that didn't change. 

Since they're now finally free to move around, the team split again. Han leaves for Tokyo – Mia seems really worried about him, and she isn't the only one, because every single one of them makes a point of reminding Han that they have his back if he needs it, all he has to do is call. 

Letty gets the sickening feeling that he won't call. He's too used to doing things on his own and handling his own problems; the only exception was Gisele. And now that she's gone, it feels like every little thing that anchored Han to the ground has been blown to the wind. 

This Letty gets from talking things out with Mia. Stray thoughts come to her more and more often, things that she needs to discuss before they make sense. She always talks with Mia, because it feels like doing the same thing with Dom would only raise his hopes up, sometimes over nothing, and Mia is always happy to help. 

This time, though, Mia frowns her way through the whole conversation, and it takes Letty a little while to realize that Mia is worried over Han, not over her. 

One after the other, they leave, until it's only Dom, Mia, Brian, little Jack, and herself. The house feels almost too empty, but not in a bad way. More like she finally has a second to breathe and start figuring things out. 

It takes her a couple of days to decide that, even though it might not be easy, she wants to know what happened to her. That evening, after dinner, once Mia has put Jack to bed, they sit in the backyard, with a baby monitor between Mia and Brian in case Jack needs anything, even though it's just as often Dom or Letty who get up to have a look if the little one starts crying. 

The first time she'd seen Jack, Letty's eyes had filled with tears. "Did I forget him too?"

"No," Mia had said, easily. "No, you've never met him. Jack, wanna say hi to Aunt Letty?" 

"He's a cutie,” Letty had said when she'd found herself with an armful of toddler. 

She has a feeling that, once upon a time, Mia would have teased her about one day getting kids of her own. This time, though, Mia gently pressed Letty's hand in hers, and left Jack in Letty's arms for as long as they both wanted. 

So that night, once they've all run out of conversation and are watching the sun go down, Letty asks, "I'm ready. Will you tell me what happened to me?"

Mia, Dom and Brian all remain silent just a little bit too long, but Letty has a feeling that it's because they don't know where to begin, not because they don't want to tell her. 

"What do you know?" Mia finally asks.

"At the hospital, they told me I'd been in a car crash, and now I know that someone tried to murder me, but that's about it." She knows a little more than that, of course, but the bits and pieces she's heard over the weeks don't make sense, or at least, not in a way that would allow her to put them all together. 

After another silence, Dom asks, "You want the short story or the long one?"

She can't help but smile. "There's a short story? Really?"

"No, not really," Brian admits, laughing, before he starts explaining. 

Mia and Dom keep interrupting him, often enough that Letty soon realizes that none of them knows the full story. She, herself, starts asking questions every time something doesn't make sense, and it happens a lot. Dom, Brian and Mia all tend to forget that she doesn't remember anything. Usually, they're better at helping fill the holes in her knowledge, but now, reminiscing on years of knowing each other, there are details they don't realize they need to give her until she asks for them. 

So it leads to a lot of moments like, when Brian explains, looking very uneasy, that he was the one who set her up with Bragga's team, she blinks at him and says, before he can add anything else, "Wait, if _you_ did that..." She interrupts herself, staring at Mia and Dom. "How the hell did we become friends with a fed?"

Mia starts laughing as Brian drops his head and mutters something that sounds a lot like, "Kill me now." 

"Well," Mia says, laughter still obvious in her voice, "the first job that you, Dom, and the team pulled was going so well that they sent us an undercover cop to try and bust Dom."

Letty presses a hand against her mouth as she tries not to laugh, too. "And we're still friends with you?" 

"He gave me his car and let me go, back then. He helped me avenge your," she can almost hear Dom swallow down the word _murder_ , "disappearance, and busted me out of jail when I was sentenced to life. Plus, my sister is crazy over him." 

"So you decided he couldn't be such a bad guy." Letty's teasing is directed toward Brian, but he seems to be taking it well. 

"Even though he lied to us about a lot of stuff, like his juvie record."

"That wasn't a lie," Brian says. "If Jesse had known to look for Brian O'Conner, he would have found a cop with the exact same record." 

With a smile, Letty gets them back on track. "I think I need to hear that story too." 

Next to her, Mia agrees with a nod. "Everything else will make more sense if we start there." 

So they tell her about being seven years younger, in the street race world of LA. Letty bursts out laughing at Dom's description of Brian as a "cocky, arrogant little shit" – somehow, she gets a feeling that Dom was just as cocky – and, from the look on Mia's face, it's clear that she's trying really hard not to laugh, too. 

With somber faces, they tell her about the Race War in the desert, about Jesse losing to Tran, about the job that everyone but Dom had a bad feeling about. They tell her about Vince, about Brian coming to the rescue. They tell her about finding Johnny and Lance, back in LA, about Brian letting Dom go, so he could join Letty and Leon, who were waiting for him in Baja. 

At that, she stares, and stares again. "We were on the run together?"

This time, it's Dom who looks uncomfortable. "Yeah. For almost five years." 

Letty bites her lip as she tries to figure out how to ask. From the little they've said earlier, before they took that trip down memory lane, she knows that she was here in LA with Mia, and doing her best to make Dom come home. But no matter how she looks at it, it doesn't make sense. Not with what she knows of herself. "Why did I leave you?"

Dom doesn't answer, sends an almost desperate look Mia's way. 

But all Mia does is shake her head. "Forget it, Dom. That was your mess. Don't try and bring me into it." 

Still, it takes a couple of seconds of silence before Dom finally admits, "You didn't leave me. I left you." 

Her throat is so dry that she has a hard time getting her words out. "What happened?"

"We were in the Dominican Republic, pulling jobs stealing fuel from convoys. The last one ended with an exploding truck. Cops were fast on my heels. The team split because I wanted you all safe, but you wouldn't leave me, no matter how much I asked you. So I left in the middle of the night. I gave you my share of the job so you'd have enough money to go home." Dom still isn't looking at her. "I ain't saying it was a good decision, but at the time, I thought it was for the best." 

She doesn't have anything to say to that. Mia changes the subject, a little bit too fast, and they all agree to leave the rest of the story for another night. 

Moments later, they hear Jack start fussing. Mia takes the excuse to head back inside, but when Brian grabs the empty beers, ready to follow her, Letty ignores the hopeful look Dom throws her way and stands up to give Brian a hand. Right now, she's too angry to talk. 

Later, once Mia has put little Jack back into bed and Letty doesn't feel like throwing things anymore, she finds Dom in what was once their room. He's standing with his back to her, staring out the open window. 

He has to hear her, because he throws a look at her over his shoulder before she can say anything. His smile is hesitant, but firmly there. 

"Why are you smiling?" she asks. 

"'Cause you ain't yelling at me. It's usually a good sign."

She has to bite down a smile. It's not that hard to believe; between her temper and what she knows of Dom's, she's sure that, once upon a time, they must have had screaming matches fit to blow the roof off the house. 

"Just because I'm not yelling doesn't mean I'm not angry." 

He sobers up at once. "I'm sorry." 

"What are you sorry for?" He opens his mouth like he wants to answer, but she doesn't let him. "If it's for almost getting me killed, you can shove your excuses up your ass. It means you have no idea why I'm angry." 

She can almost feel him get ready for a fight, but he surprises her when he asks, "Why are you angry?"

Instead of telling him, she asks, "What did I tell you, when you tried to convince me to leave?" 

"That we would figure it out. We always did." 

His answer comes out so quickly that it makes her heart beat faster, when she realizes that he remembers her exact words. She does her best to hide it. 

"And how long had I been by your side?"

"Almost five years."

"Five years," she repeats, like she can't quite believe it, "and it didn't cross your mind that I might know what I was doing?" 

"I was a wanted criminal, Letty. I was the one they wanted. But if they caught me, they would take down everyone who was with me. I was trying to protect you. I was trying to protect the whole team." 

"You were a wanted criminal." She can't keep the amusement out of her voice. "And I wasn't?"

"Not at home." He slowly walks up to her. "During that last heist, the one that went wrong, the trucker got a very good look at my face, and Vince, and Brian. Not you. Not Leon. Brian didn't lose his badge just because he let me go. He almost didn't give them anything. So there were no charges against you. You could come home, if you wanted to. I couldn't. And if you were caught with me, well. You can imagine what would have happened."

"Yes, I can imagine," she says, very slowly, taking a step back when he tries to take her into his arms. "But it was my choice, Dom. You took it out of my hands because you thought it was for the best. Do you realize how patronizing that sounds?"

"Do you think I ain't sorry? Jesus, Letty, I've been regretting this since the moment I walked out on you."

Once again, he takes a step and so does she, keeping the same distance between them. "Why? Because we weren't together anymore? Because you almost got me killed? If all you care about are the consequences, Dom, you have no idea how badly you hurt me." 

She takes another step, resting her back against the wall, and this time he doesn't follow.

"I made a mistake, I know that."

"Your mistake," she looks at him straight in the eye, "was not to trust me. Your mistake was to think you knew better than me what was good for me. But if we do this, if we start over, I have to be sure you won't do that again." 

Dom sighs. "The situation ain't the same, Letty." 

"Can you guarantee that it will never be the same?" She almost expects him to interrupt her, but he lets her talk. "This is who we are, Dom. Both adrenaline junkies. There are risks you take that I think are insane, but I wouldn't try and stop you. I need to be sure you'll do the same for me." 

This time, when he tries to move closer, she lets him, closing her own arms around his waist until there isn't even a breath of space between them. "I mean," she says, with a soft smile, "Can you imagine us settling down like Mia and Brian? Playing house?" 

She feels more than she hears his sharp intake of breath. "One day, maybe." 

She moves, just a bit, her heart hurting from the hope she can see on his face. "Maybe," she agrees, and she hopes he understands that she really means it. "But not yet. Elena asked me to keep you out of trouble. I told her it wasn't gonna happen. In part because I'm as prompt to get into trouble as you are. So I can't tell what will happen next week, next month, next year. But I need to know that, when the worst happens, you won't run away on me. That you'll trust me to make my own choices. And respect them."

She's glad when he doesn't answer immediately, when he takes the time to think it over. 

So she knows he really means it when he says, "I can try." 

From the look on his face, it's clear he expects that not to be enough. 

But she likes his honesty more than she would empty promises. "That's good enough for me." 

***

She wishes she could say it's a smooth ride from that moment on, but of course there are still lots of bumps in the road, and too often, they only spot those after they've run into them. 

If Letty still has a temper, she's learned to control it. She doesn't know if that was before or after her memory loss, but the result is the same. She doesn't let anyone walk over her, but her anger is now a low simmer, a lot more dangerous than when she was quick to yell and scream. 

She keeps asking questions, slowly piecing together her memories. She doesn't remember, not exactly, even though she wishes more than anything to remember. There are words, moments, that feel, not exactly familiar, but like they should wake something in her. They don't, most of the time, but she knows, then, to ask questions until it does make sense. So that, even though she doesn't remember, the woman she once was makes sense to her. 

And she watches Dom almost half the time. Working on his car, playing with little Jack, arguing with Brian, sharing some quiet time with Mia... she might never understand why she fell for him, way back when – which isn't such a surprise, considering she was a teenager at the time and she has no memory of the way she was – but she's starting to find plenty of reasons to fall for him, here and now. 

It's in that damn protective streak of his and the way it extends to every person he trusts. It's in the patience he shows with Mia and little Jack. It's in the way he never assumes she needs help with anything unless she asks for it. It's the way he looks at her sometimes, like he can't quite believe she's there, like she's some kind of treasure that he never wants to let go. 

It has everything to do with who Dom is as a person, and nothing to do with the fact that he saved her life, that he went halfway around in the world in the hope of getting her back. 

That might be why she finally feels safe enough to do anything about it. One evening, after watching a movie, after Brian and Mia have gone to bed, when Dom says to her, "You'd be more comfortable in your own bed, don't you think?" 

She looks at where she is on the couch, her side to his front, his arms around her, her head on his chest. "I think I'm good here."

It takes him half a second to understand that she isn't talking about the couch, and she watches her words hit him, like a punch to the stomach. He inches closer, so close that she can feel his breath against her mouth when he asks, his voice low, "You sure?" 

"Yeah, I'm sure." And it's up to her to close the distance between them, to press her lips against his and tease his mouth open. She feels the shudder that runs through him before he tightens his grip on her, like he's afraid that she'll vanish into thin air if he lets her go. 

He keeps her tight and close, kisses her like he's a man dying of thirst and she's the only water he'll ever get. She loses herself in his kiss and holds him just as close. 

Some time later, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, she can't tell, Dom releases her mouth and says, "At least, let's move this to my bed. I'm too old to sleep on this damn couch." 

She can't help the giggle that escapes her and asks, "I used to tease you about that, didn't I? Because you're older than me?"

If Dom is surprised, he doesn't show it. Nor does he ask if she remembers. "Not by much, but... yeah, you did." 

She kisses him again, hard enough to leave them both out of breath, and then she says, "Let's move." 

They don't do anything but kiss, and fall asleep in each other's arms. Letty's starting to understand Dom's comparison to when they were teenagers, but it doesn't matter. They'll have time to learn each other, all over again. There's no need to rush things. 

The only important thing is that, that night, Dom's bed becomes theirs, again. 

And as she falls asleep, Letty thinks that this house doesn't just feel like home. 

It _is_ home.


End file.
